


A Noble Maiden Fair

by honeyvioletmoon



Category: Brave (2012), Secret of Kells (2009), brendan et le secret de kells
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Mythology, Archery, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, F/F, Fae & Fairies, Fae Magic, Faerie Horse, Fairies, Ireland, Irish Language, Lesbian Character, Mythology - Freeform, Mythology References, No Lesbians Die, Scotland, wlw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 23:54:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18648700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeyvioletmoon/pseuds/honeyvioletmoon
Summary: A year ago I was snatched for ever from my home to the hill where hawthorns quiver.





	A Noble Maiden Fair

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by some fanart I will link to once I'm at home! I wrote this a while back and it's unfinished but I really wanna complete it! BOTH characters are aged up, even Aisling who is like hundreds of years old

Merida didn't mind going to Ireland. No really! She didn't. Ever since her father passed last winter (struck with fever he was and try as Merida might to search in vain for the Witch and bang upon her door past the stones, she never showed herself to cure him), embassy duties had fallen to her as queen, and seeing as how gloomy it sometimes seemed within the castle now, she had no trouble at all sailing off to Ireland for a chance of fresh air and to stretch her legs, so to speak. 

Her brothers were still as clever as ever, even if they towered over her and could no longer be described as "the wee three" (though that didn't stop her from doing it as she reached up to ruffle their long red locks or pinch their scarred cheeks... what good was being Queen if you couldn't use your stature to regain the upper hand over your hulking warrior brothers?), though Hubert was less robust than the others. Her brothers had only gotten more clever with age, it seemed, and once they outgrew (Most) mischief making, they applied their skills to other areas. While their father still ruled, all three trained beneath his sword, and Hamish only seemed to grow more muscle, and best more enemies, every time he came back from battle boasting of wartime glories and proudly displaying a few new wounds. Harris, on his part, used his keen eye in archery, and his hearty command in horsemanship, as well as political debate. This was a great help for Hubert, who had turned to more scholarly pursuits. He studied nearly everything, from clan history ("So we can learn from our mistakes, he'd chide, side eyeing his sister... Cor, but He sounded like Mum. What was next? "Legends are lessons, Majesty!") to engineering (he was always tinkering with some catapult or apparatus or another) to magic (Merida guessed his mishap as a bear had really stuck with him). 

And so, it is Hubert she leaves in regency when she must away to the Emerald Isle. After all, he is the eldest by six minutes. She is a tad worried, as clan tensions have been running high subsequent to her father's demise and there's been talk of taking the Queen Mother away from DunBroch before the conflict reaches an extreme. Merida had already heard rumors that some of the younger tribal sons, ignoring the amity their elders shared with King Fergus, want to contest their own rights to the throne they deem a "simple girl" unfit to sit upon. 

Merida knows, she does, that despite all their acceptance of her talk of love and choosin' your own fate, those years past when they'd sent their champions and heirs to volley for her hand, that things would be different... easier perhaps, should she have been married. An idle queen is nothing to such and such conglomerates of restless and frightful men, no matter that there were dry spells in the south, and crops were failing slightly (only just, but enough to force some grumbles of complaint), or that Viking raids had come closer and closer to the bonny shores of their little, peaceful kingdom, when chaired by a competent king- Competent only because of the fact that he be man and not woman, aye, even when that woman has been doing an entirely capable job of leading her kingdom in the months since ye crowned her queen, thank you very much! 

She wouldn't even mind marriage, if it were to someone she felt worthy of her heart. One who brought thrills in the pit of her belly and chills to shiver down her spine upon sight, one who could gaze at her with so much warmth her freckled cheeks began to burn with the same heat. Someone to listen to her, laugh with her, spar with her, ride out to the Fire Falls with her in the dark of morning before the rest of the castle awoke and sip the chill draught of them from between each other's cupped palms, soft lips smiling against the skin. Merida didn't want a prince out of legend- She'd settle for someone, anyone (be he of noble birth or common blood), so long as she was loved and understood. Even if in the hearts of her people, he'd wear the crown, she wanted him to understand this was her kingdom, her home, and she cared enough to want a hand in its ruling. 

This far, every suitor (however rare) had failed to meet her expectations. And she didn't think herself unreasonable. She merely wanted to be cared about for more than the lands she could offer, or the position of power she had to usurp after some dusty words from an official and one night in a marriage bed. Someone... noble. Someone kind and just and-and... fair. She remembered, one desperate night as the danger of invaders (both from outside and within Scotland), crying out those very words in a foolish wish to the stars... For someone loving, noble, fair. 

Perhaps she'd meet someone in Ireland, she'd thought on the ship across the channel, the salty mist in her nose and puffing up her curls. Land of scholars and saints, she was bound to find someone to fancy out of the two. At the very least this trip, to visit with noble and clergymen about the impending threats to their nations, would be a respite from the daily stresses of queenship, no matter how much she tried to take in stride. But then they'd docked in lands just as lush and green as her own, sloping valleys and dells cloaked in thick tufts of viridescent turf, though the shade seemed brighter and the curling mists lighter than back home, somehow. And she'd been toted from estate to estate, all the high stone towers and plowed fields blurring together until she felt about ready to scream and set her sword against the wooden banisters of the bed in her current room, a grand chamber with a hearty fire and a small window cut into the east wall, overlooking the fields, and beyond, a sweeping forest curving out towards the coast, and past the hills to the tops of black mountainous rock, hardly visible to her eye. 

And as if this wasn't just dreamy enough, rain poured in turrets from clouds as dusky as creeping shadows. Yet above them the sun still gallantly shone, casting the world in a strange pale half-light. It was the kind of surreal setting one might dub auspicious for adventures. And here she was, Queen Merida, shut up inside another castle, waiting out the flood. Suddenly an idea sprang into her mind. She didn't have to stay here! She was the queen! She could very well do as she pleased... so much for pacing holes in the elaborately patterned rug, fussing over whether or not this ambassador or that chancellor would arrive or not today! She wanted the breeze at her neck, mud on the hem of her gown and cloak, Angus' flanks beneath her, a bow hung on one loose shoulder, a quiver strapped to the other. 

Well, she didn't have Angus, but her bow was in her trunk, and her cloak hung beside the fire. In the wind stirred within the chimney, the dangling edges lifted and almost seemed to be beckoning her to the window. Snatching both her weapon and her warmth, she shrugged into her boots and threw one leg over the tiny windowsill, angling her body into the space so as to slide through. She was on the first floor of the fortress, likely she wouldn't even fall far enough for harm since some lush foliage graced the soil beneath the outlook. It took her no time at all to scale the wall and hurdle through the fields, mindful of the slumbering crops, to reach the outskirts of the towering wood. Wind whipping her hair about her face, she stepped out of the half sun into the dingy cloak of oak. It was odd, but it half sounded like someone was singing, far away... Strange music, unlike any she'd ever heard. A childlike lament... and very softly, the ringing of odd (they chimed, but did not echo, and the sound struck wrong in her heart) and elusive bells. 

***

She'd not been walking long when the trees became strange. At first, the regular lines of oak had become peppered with the occasional sparse saplings of hawthorn, rowan, or ash. Merida knew them all well enough, as her mother had taught her her letters during nature walks wherever her father had brought them. Back when he'd gone nearly nomadic, during the early days of his kingship, they were always paying visits to the leaders of every tribe. Usually after some time traipsing through a wood the trees begin to thin and one reaches a certain sort of clearing. Her own forest back home did this often; it was how she had first found the ancient ring of stones that led her to the witch's lair. But here, the trees seemed almost to grow thicker around the middle and stretch so tall you could not glimpse the leaves above for anything. Their trunks were a smooth, dark wood, almost black in color, the grain of the bark unnaturally without lumps or cracks or roughness. It was like seeing trees carved by some godly mason, or towers of driftwood softened by scores of years beneath the frothing sea. It unsettled her. 

Merida nevertheless continued in her exploration, bouncing on her toes at the cold bite of a clean wind and the sounds of animal life humming around her, Not far off. Here, the trees seemed to keep out any of the rain which had spattered her in crossing the field, though her hair still hung limply in damp coils, small spiral strands clinging to her cheek. All of a sudden, she reared up short, blinking. What she had taken for a crop of rocks sprouting from the earth and a forlorn log upon second glance was a horse. It was white, with long, powerful flukes tapering off into lithe legs and silver hooves. But the white was not that of snow... it seemed more akin to the shade of the odd half light which had cloaked the lands this morn. Almost as though... he were made of it. His glistening tail flicked once, seeming to Merida not unlike the sparkle of dawn's light on a curving riverbed. His ears, soft as velvet, were the deep red of a fire licking within the circle of rocks that enclosed its power. Or fresh blood spilled in the snow. 

"Where did you come from?" Merida chided it, reaching out a palm to stroke its broad nose. Its azure eyes stared back at her, unchanging, and it huffed a heavy sigh. "Have you got a master? He must be looking for you, eh?" 

The horse did not respond, merely regarded her cooly. Merida studied it from above and below but could find no indication of ownership, or what's more, its sex. But this horse was a girl, the queen decided, giving it another friendly pat on the rump. "We ladies must stick together." She teased, scoffing at the idea of either of them conforming to ideals of a "lady." But if the horse had to be something, a lass was as good as any, isn't it? Merida found when she took a step to continue, the horse raised its front left hoof, as though making to join her. She seemed to do it so naturally, Merida did not try and dissuade the mysterious animal. 

"Right then. Traveling companion's just what I need with my Angus waiting for me at home anyhow." Merida said aloud to no one, as the wood had grown even thicker and more impeding, yet fallen silent as an old graveyard. However, capable as she was of riding bareback in a gown, she did not mount the strange horse. Together the two journeyed onwards into the forest, one before the other, and Merida swore off in the direction they were going, she heard that whispered trill of child song echoing back in fragments again. 

"Argh! This wood must be ENDLESS!"


End file.
